The AP report:

Pakistan’s defense minister said Tuesday that the country should reopen its Afghan border crossings to NATO troop supplies after negotiating a better deal with the coalition.

Pakistan closed the crossings over two months ago in response to American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two Afghan border posts. The closure has forced the United States to spend six times as much money to send supplies to Afghanistan through alternative routes.

You can frame this two ways:

• The U.S. is spending an exorbitant sum to send supplies through the NDN (read: Uzbekistan), so therefore everything is a failure and the silence will fall; or
• The expansion of the NDN (read: Uzbekistan) has created sufficient political space and pressure on Pakistan that they’re finally willing to climb down and play ball on transit routs and other issues.

Of course, both frames are true, at least to a degree. In the current status quo it’s unlikely Pakistan will agree to much more than allowing the transit routes to reopen (not coincidentally further enriching the Pakistani military-run trucking mafia along the way), just as it’s unlikely paying even $87 million more per month for transit costs through Central Asia will bankrupt the U.S.

From the U.S. government’s perspective, however, they’re now getting movement out of Islamabad, and that’s really what they want. Mission accomplished, then?

The stars aligned and two interviews I gave over the last week for different-language’d public media have been published.

The first is with Dutch Public Radio, and it’s about the U.S. decision to lift restrictions on providing certain kinds of military equipment to the Uzbek regime. (See more here.)

The second is with VOA Uzbek, where I talk about the inherent tensions between human rights advocacy and broader strategic U.S. goals in the region. (See more here.)

The Dutch text can be machine-translated in Chrome (or whatever you use), but the Uzbek one is a bit harder to work with. Anyway, there’s that.

Last week, Kazakhstan’s Vice Prime Minister Erbol Orynbaev told the board of the Ministry of Education and Science that the country’s schools have a vital assignment: to prevent “ideological extremism” – presumably the type of extremism that led to the criminal acts done in the name of Islam in western Kazakhstan and Taraz last year – by developing Kazakh “patriots” who think independently.  This assignment reflects the Soviet approach of some Kazakhstani government officials to criminal acts done in the name of Islam: the problem to be solved is the false consciousness of “extremists.”  Except, in this case, instead of the proletariat’s misrecognition of its class interests, it is Kazakh Muslims’ misrecognition of their true ideology: Kazakh patriotism.

While I applaud Orynbaev’s emphasis on education and independent thinking, anyone who has ever spent time in Kazakhstan knows that Kazakh patriotism in not in short supply.  The Ministry of Education and Science is already producing Kazakh patriots.  What turns “extremists,” or, to use a less judgmental term, pious Muslims (whether those who seek to purify Islam of “superstitions,” those who attempt to reclaim their ancestors’ legacy, or those interested in other types of piety) against the government in Kazakhstan is not a lack of Kazakh patriotism or independent thinking. (An ironic prescription by Orynbaev, as independent scriptural interpretation is a hallmark of Salafist exegetical practice.)   Instead, it is an environment that prevents Muslims from fulfilling the conditions of their own notions of piety that creates friction between pious Muslims and the Kazakhstani government.  Many reformist women who wear loose gowns and tight hijabs are frightened by some government officials’ rhetoric on the hijab; for example, one woman I spoke with believes she was passed over for a government position because of her dress and is now quite concerned about the future of like-minded Muslims in Kazakhstan.  Members of Ata Zholy, a neo-traditionalist group, were upset when regional prosecutors shut down their official pilgrimage corporation.  In both cases, the repression of these groups by some government officials is unnecessary: the vast majority of reformist Muslims I have spoken with in Kazakhstan support the government of Kazakhstan and, in particular, President Nazarbaev’s emphasis on economic development before political change. Members of Ata Zholy are ready to beatify Nazarbaev: his “five forefathers” are seen as saints who can help Muslims in their everyday lives, and Nazarbaev is already believed to visit Kazakhs’ dreams to foretell dangers or opportunities.  Before repressive action from regional governments, these pious Kazakhs had been Kazakh “patriots,” and many remain so today.  The Ministry of Education thus finished its assignment before it was even given – someone else just scribbled all over it.

A few weeks ago, I highlighted the plight of Geldy Kyarizov, a former horse trainer turned political prisoner in Turkmenistan. Amnesty International has just released an Urgent Action alert on his deteriorating condition:

Amnesty International has received credible reports that Geldy Kyarizov is currently suffering from serious heart illness, enlarged liver and high blood pressure, as well as gallbladder and gastric problems and needs access to urgent specialist medical treatment. Amnesty International fears that if he does not access the necessary specialist medical treatment soon, his life may be in danger. Reportedly, such specialist medical treatment is not available to him in Turkmenistan. In similar cases Turkmenistani residents seek medical treatment abroad. However, he and his family members are believed to be on a ‘black list’ and therefore unable to leave the country. His wife, sister-in-law and daughter attempted to leave Turkmenistan in 2006, 2008 and 2010 respectively but were denied exit. Amnesty International is also concerned that Geldy Kyarizov and his family continue to be harassed by the authorities: they are currently under surveillance; his wife and sister-in-law have been unable to find employment apparently because of being related to him.

It should come as no surprise that Turkmenistan is an abhorrent regime that also happens to enjoy warm relations with the U.S. as well as the global energy industry. Alas, their abuses never seen to generate as much heat as Uzbekistan, though I’d argue they’re possibly worse in many ways (and there is less visibility into how the country functions as well). For example, even taking pictures of the public banners used to promote the upcoming fraudulent election is a dangerous act of defiance — something that is not true of the other countries of Central Asia.

As another example, Turkmenistan has made a habit of treating dissidents as if they were dangerous psychopaths, sentencing them to psychiatric prisons as if Brezhnev’s reign in the 1970s never ended. While the tactic in Uzbekistan resulted in lots of media attention — relatively, since this is Central Asia and few in the West care about it — in Turkmenistan such actions merit barely a peep, even though international involvement in the country is far greater. There are also bizarre and upsetting actions like sending decapitated horse heads to the homes of dissidents that get little more than shrugs here.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there for the moment. Geldy at least has some Europeans who try to reach out for help in publicizing his case (several of them have contacted me, and I’m happy to help them spread the word). But there are many other activists in Turkmenistan who languish in obscurity and irrelevance. That’s a real shame, but at least in this case maybe shining some sunlight can result in his getting the medical help he clearly needs.

So yesterday I posted this here at Registan. 

What will be interesting to see is how ISAF responds to this report, if it will at all. They’re certainly quick to point out how IEDs are a good thing, despite the fact that they are killing and wounding Afghan civilians in record numbers.

Today I read this.

Gen. John R. Allen, commander, International Security Assistance Force, welcomes the latest report from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan that shows a reduction in coalition-related civilian casualties.

“Every citizen of Afghanistan must know ISAF will continue to do all we can to reduce casualties that affect the Afghan civilian population. This data is promising but there is more work to be done,” said Allen. “Even one civilian casualty is a tragedy and I will continue to direct each member of the coalition to work to drive the number of ISAF-caused civilian casualties to zero.”

So that’s fun. If you’re interested, I had thoughts on the matter over at It’s Always Sunny in Kabul.  Spoiler alert: I am less than impressed with ISAF’s release.

I have to assume that there’s a collective lack of oxygen happening over at ISAF HQ. That’s the only logical explanation for a press release that’s this out of touch with the fact that what they’re saying is, in essence that this report is “good news.” Because mass hypoxia would explain how an 8% increase in the number of dead civilians on the battlefield can be construed as a good thing.

It doesn’t really get better from there. Just, you know, fair warning.

The only consolation in all this is that I’ve got to assume that this sort of public affairs flailing at anything that indicates even the remote possibility of positive progress in this country should make for interesting reading. So that’s a win. Unfortunately, that kind of “win” is coming at the cost of Afghan lives. Any time your civilian population comes out on the short end of any kind of metric stick? I’d call that a bad thing.

Some days I worry that I’m suffering from sleep apnea. Which, in turn, is causing me to lose oxygen to my brain. Which, in turn, is causing me to not fully comprehend what I read, particularly on the interwebs. Because, that, friends, is one of the few logical explanations for what I read today:

Last year was the deadliest on record for Afghan civilians with 3,021 killed, a rise of 8 percent from the year before as insurgents ratchet up violence with roadside bombs and suicide attacks, the United Nations said Saturday.

Huh. Must be oxygen deprivation, because I could have sworn that the CRS said this:

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the research arm of the US Congress, 2,262 Afghan civilians died last year, compared to 2,777 in 2010.

That’s a 750+ difference. Somebody’s lyin’.

Or, there’s an alternative, which prompted a blog post over at It’s Always Sunny in Kabul when I (along with others) was questioning the CRS release. See, what UNAMA does is define a “year” as a period covering “12 months.” Which, apparently, is soooo 2010:

So the last report by UNAMA was in… September, with data collected through August. Even though the CRS report runs through November. And actually reports a lower number than would be reported if combining the two figures from the UNAMA reports. I’m not terribly good at math, but 1462 + 971 = 2,433, not 2,262. And taking the original figures, while for the year through August civilian casualties were trending higher than the previous year, the number of fatalities for the last three months dropped off so much that the entire year ended up being 22% lower than the previous year?

Sure they did…so long as they year ended in…August.

If your year’s going badly, kids, just…redefine your year.

What I came up with based on extensive use of Wikipedia was this:

• 2010 – 2,777 dead civilians
• 2011 – CRS reports 2,262 dead civilians (a 22% decrease in civilian deaths) based off of data that only went through August. Not through November as listed in the CRS report. Of course, the CRS doesn’t actually list the press reports it used to compile its data, but then again, its number is still lower than the numbers from the two UNAMA reports.
• 2011 – The number of dead civilians combining UNAMA numbers and press reports? 2,700 (a 2.8% decrease).

Turns out that I, like the CRS, was wrong.

What’s troubling is the fact that not only is the CRS playing fast and loose with the calendar, but that the message of ISAF/NATO releases is that the increases in IEDs and the resulting increases in Afghan casualties is, well, a Martha Stewart sort of groove.

The success has been so great that insurgents have largely lost control of the area and now rely on IEDs as their primary method of attack, while local Afghan government and security forces created the conditions for Afghans to exert control over many of the major routes and towns in the south.

What will be interesting to see is how ISAF responds to this report, if it will at all. They’re certainly quick to point out how IEDs are a good thing, despite the fact that they are killing and wounding Afghan civilians in record numbers.

Now, here’s where this gets tricky: I get the logic of the “IED go boom = war going good” train of thought. I do. But somehow expecting the people who are getting blown up by those same IEDs to accept that fact is, well, probably one stop too many for the Crazytown Express.  And, if a key metric for measuring success is also a key cause for more dead Afghans, is whatever you’re doing really that successful?

For at least the last seven or eight years, the Prokudin-Gorskii collection of color photos of the Russian empire taken in the early 20th century, gets noticed and reported by journalists, history buffs, and photography enthusiasts. Less well known is that the Turkestan Album, a series of volumes on the people, architecture, history, and economy of Russian Turkestan commissioned by General von Kaufman, the Empire’s first Governor-General in Turkestan, was also digitized by the Library of Congress and made available several years ago. (Many thanks to Fergana News for writing about this, which reminded me that I had a draft post on this from 2007.)

The bulk of the photos in the collection were taken in 1871 and 1872, while some images in the historical volume date back to 1853. The collection contains well over 1,000 photos and is a phenomenal resource not only for a glimpse into Central Asia of the mid- to late-19th century, but also into how the Russian Empire viewed the people of these territories.

(P.S. — Fergana News also recently posted some interesting photos of clay structures in Uzbekistan taken between 1974 and 1989.)

This B-52 is not a part of the “military aid” the U.S. will provide Uzbekistan.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Obama administration waived a ban on military assistance to Uzbekistan in a move to bolster ties with a nation that is part of a vital supply line to Afghanistan, but was cut off from aid because of alleged human-rights violations…

The U.S.-funded supplies to Uzbekistan wouldn’t include weapons and ammunition, and would be limited to items meant to bolster the country’s border and transportation security. The military equipment would include body armor and other protective equipment, night-vision goggles and thermal-imaging sensors for border-patrol forces, according to officials familiar with the waiver.

In other words, there’s nothing really new here, but now it’s all signed and in action (see my earlier post for the full text of the waiver language and the law governing its usage). The real sticking point is going to be how human rights groups react to the move: unsurprisingly Human Rights Watch is voicing strong objection. In an interview with Uznews, Hugh Williamson, Director of HRW’s of Europe and Central Asia division, said:

This is a fundamentally wrong decision, and sends the wrong signal to Uzbekistan and to the world… The human rights situation has only worsened over the last nine years, and therefore Uzbekistan has done nothing to merit the lifting of these sanctions.

Williamson went on to say that US could have continued to use the transit route through Uzbekistan without lifting its sanctions, which is just not the case (and he would have known that had he spoken with any officials involved in these negotiations).

Officials, too, dispute that the rights situation is worse from 2010-2011. The WSJ quotes a State Department spokesperson as noting that Tashkent has taken some steps to curtail illegal labor trafficking, and released some imprisoned political activists. “We do not want to overstate Uzbekistan’s progress on human-rights issues, but it is appropriate to note positive developments just as we discuss setbacks,” she said.

Such limited praise surely won’t endear the State Department or the U.S. government to human rights activists, who continue to protest the imprisonment of political dissidents (like this small protest about human rights in Paris), and whose reports don’t include any language indicating limited progress on some issues.

So now that Uzbekistan will get night-vision goggles and bullet-proof vests, will the U.S. become complicit in the regime’s abuses? Maybe. Given how ineffective total disengagement was at improving the situation I’m still not sure what the other options are, given the broader strategic priorities the U.S. has in the region (i.e. Afghanistan, which, considering its deadliness and extent, really shouldn’t be discounted in these discussions the way activists usually do). But that doesn’t mean the U.S. government has any better or other options.

This remains the least-bad decision to make going forward, at least until the war in Afghanistan is wound down. Once that happens, there should be an immediate reevaluation of U.S. policy toward Tashkent. But until then, I think everyone needs to grit their teeth and end one war before trying to score points on a neighboring dictatorship.

RFE/RL carries an interesting story about Kubanychbek Tezekbaev, an advocate of Tengrism who is on trial for inciting religious and ethnic hatred for saying in an interview last June that many mullahs in Kyrgyzstan are “former alcoholics and murderers” who are trying to paper over their pasts. Tezekbaev, who could be sentenced to five years in prison if found guilty, says he is being punished for his beliefs.

Tengrism has played an interesting, if obscure, role in the competition to define national identities, religion, and ideologies of Turkic peoples throughout the former Soviet Union. (For more on this, see Laruelle’s 2007 Central Asian Survey article, from which most of the following information is derived, or her shorter 2006 article on Tengrism.) Dastan Sarygulov claims to lead Kyrgyzstan’s Tengrist movement. A former Soviet official, post-independence governor of Talas, and head of Kyrgyzaltyn (where he is alleged to have illegally trafficked state gold reserves), managed to maneuver himself to the position of Secretary of State under Bakiev in 2005. In this position, he led a commission to establish a national ideology that, ultimately, only resulted in debate over Tengrism and concern that it would receive the blessings of the state. Kyrgyzstan’s Muslim Spiritual Board complained specifically that promotion of Tengrism “rehabilitates” anti-Muslim sentiment.

Tezekbaev says in the RFE/RL article that Tengrism is not incompatible with Islam and that many in Kyrgyzstan are followers of both Tengrism and Islam. Religious syncretism can be found all over the world, and Central Asia is abundant with examples of Islam incorporating pre-Islamic beliefs and practices. Nevertheless, the cleric quoted in the story as saying one can either be Muslim or not Muslim lays out a fairly mainstream position. Tengrists like Sarygulov try to dodge this by saying the Tengrism is not a religion, but a perspective on the world and a lifestyle. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan’s Tengrists cast Islam as a religion foreign to the Kyrgyz, and Sarygulov has in the past proposed “cleansing” the country of foreign influences.

As this Diesel thread shows, Tengrism remains very controversial. Even if it is not a religion, it challenges the centrality of Islam to Kyrgyz identity and fundamentally questions what it means to be Kyrgyz. As a movement though, it is small, and presents no real challenge to Islam among the Kyrgyz. And really, Tezekbaev’s comment was fairly tame comment to be facing a five year sentence. Official sensitivity to the statements of minority ethnic and religious groups obviously runs high in Kyrgyzstan though, and this is important to keep in mind when judging the ways in which post-Bakiev Kyrgyzstan has and has not liberalized.

UPDATE: There’s a bit more background about this dispute in this Russian language article at Azattyk. Tezekbaev says that he is being punished by the Islamic establishment for loving Manas too damned much (more or less). To charges that Tai-Tebish encourages idolatry and that Manas is not part of Islam, he says that the spirit of Manas is in the Kyrgyz, and that those who do not know him are not true Kyrgyz. [Edited to correct earlier, poor translation.] Parliamentary Deputy Tursunbek Bakir Uluu offers up the counterpoint that Manas absolutely was a “clean” Muslim. Which means that if this debate is all about the man whose name will eventually become the only word used in the Kyrgyz language (at some point after all the streets and towns are renamed for him), this whole thing is high-stakes nuts. And of course, Alibi has to go an confirm that by calling Tezekbaev a “patriotic Kyrgyz horseman.”

Please Kyrgyzstan, take it from an American. Going overboard on nationalist myth-making and patriotic symbolism walks a fine line between ridiculous and awesome.

Last week, the US Helsinki Commission held a hearing on Kazakhstan’s stability, looking at the violence in Zhanaozen and the recent parliamentary elections and questioning whether or not Kazakhstan is as stable as its government claims. The testimony, which can be found here is interesting and worth taking a look at. Included with the expert testimony are also statements from Kazakhstan’s embassy and from the Alga People’s Party and People’s Front.

Sean Roberts identifies in his testimony several changes in Kazakhstan’s economy and society to which the government has been poorly prepared to respond and which increase the possibility that recent violence in Kazakhstan is the beginning of a longer period of less stability. They are:

1. The rapid growth of Islam’s popularity in Kazakhstan’s society, an process going on since the early ’90s has recently become more apparent in public. This public religiosity, which does not suggest the threat of terrorism or a near term move toward political Islam, is poorly understood by the government and the country’s secular middle class.
2. The growth of ethnic Kazakh nationalism, also ongoing since the early ’90s, but recently taking on new characteristics that heighten tensions.
3. Rising and unmet economic expectations.

I’m paraphrasing, but on the first two items, Dr. Roberts argues that the thoroughly Soviet education and background of Kazakhstan’s leadership leaves it out of touch and unable to adequately respond to the public. The government’s response to labor strikes, including the violence in Zhanaozen, he says, show that the government was not prepared to deal with dissatisfaction over unmet economic expectations. Dr. Roberts says that these challenges are not extreme nor likely to cause widespread unrest in the near term, but that the stagnancy of the political system means that the government lacks mechanisms to deal with large socio-economic changes. [Note: Alima wrote about the crisis of unmet expectations at length recently.]

This is good, succinct analysis of the situation that puts risks to Kazakhstan’s stability in good context. The risks are there, the government is ill-prepared to deal with them at present, but it’s unlikely that it will be overwhelmed by them soon.

These risks, however, aren’t present only in Kazakhstan. They exist in similar forms and combinations throughout Central Asia. Growing segments of society throughout the region are bringing (or attempting to…) Islam into the public square, where it is responded to with shock and terror by secular officials. National economies are failing to meet the expectations, and in many areas, even the basic needs, of the public. And though nationalism is not so clearly a problem the way it is Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the rest of Central Asia, there are small signs that society is challenging the state’s monopoly on defining what it means to be Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, etc.

In talking about risks to stability, there is often a tendency to focus on presidential succession, the specter of fundamentalism and political Islam, and a more recent tendency to talk about replication of the Arab Spring. Recent history should make it abundantly clear though, that analysts, experts, and observers are taken by surprise in the region. Game-planning what happens after Karimov dies or a resurgence of the IMU activity in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan might be worthless because they assume state and society lack the mechanisms to respond to and manage succession or terrorist groups.

The greatest risks to stability throughout the region are medium- to long-term risks arising from the three aforementioned factors and the oppositional relationship between state and society. Devising a list of indicators and warnings based on the three factors Dr. Roberts identifies — rising public religiosity, increasing nationalism, and under-performance in the economy — are more likely not only to lead to better anticipation of the trajectory of stability in Central Asia but also to provide a better idea of when serious risks to stability are likely to arise.

Photo by Tiina Oikarinen